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A Certain MoeMoe Railgun S – Ep.13

Late again; Anime Expo took over the weekend and recuperating from it (it takes a heavy toll on my body and the pain ends up wearing me out mentally) took into the week, plus I had a doctors appointment, had some annoying drama going on on another site, and some other stuff. I didn’t even watch the episode until now, so sorry for being late again.

Another episode, another brutal murder of what is essentially herself that Biribiri has to see happen right in front of her. Well, this time there was at least some distance, but she still had to watch it live.

I want her to be able to be happy again, so I hope this arc finishes soon. As exciting, interesting, and pretty much fucking amazingly well done as it is, the constant nonstop torture of Mikoto is just getting to be too much. Not in a “the show is bad” way – but in a “please give her a break already” way. I’m very excited for the post-Sister’s arc summer vacation stuff, I really need some happy Biribiri and the other girls for once after 13 and still going episodes of just nothing but her being hammered and seeing horrible things and not getting any respite. It’s terrible and I really want to feel the relief that those episodes will bring along with the conclusion of this arc. I don’t know how long this’ll still go, but I hope the arc ends in the next few episodes, it’s just so dark and heavy I can’t help it.

At this point, Mikoto is essentially broken – she’s even having delusional conversations with herself. If this continues too much longer – or she at least doesn’t finally have someone else helping her (which Touma will hopefully be involved enough to be that person) and making her mental weight a little bit lighter, even just a tiny bit, she’d just lose sight of herself entirely. Sure, she kind of already has, but it’s far from permanent right now, but seeing her be right on that line is genuinely hard to keep watching. She needs a break and so do I, this shits fucked up.

I mean this is now at least the second time she’s had to watch one of the Sisters be killed in front of her eyes; first the train crush and now this. And both of them were, coincidentally enough (albeit this time not to her knowledge) one’s she’s actually interacted with at that. Of course it’s totally bad regardless which it is, but that just makes it even worse for her. And that’s just 2 of the over 10,000 now that she knows have died already and will keep dying. She’s only 14, knowing this stuff- let alone SEEING these things, it’s fucking incredible she’s managed through this far at all, but I don’t know how much longer she can last mentally and given us seeing clear signs of that area cracking pretty seriously I just want it done. She’s an amazingly strong person, but even her mental state and body has it’s limits.

Just like in episode 12, Mikoto wasn’t very prevalent in regards to screentime – however they did this very well this time around. In episode 12 it felt kind of handled poorly, but here it felt like she was purposefully shown so little to really get across that feeling of isolation and make her scenes so much more powerful. If she was around more in the episode I feel like the scene of her breaking just wouldn’t have got to me like it did.

Aside that, as I do like commenting on the direction of the episodes pretty often – It’s worth mentioning how the transitions were from perspective to perspective. I think it was really cool how we’d see what’s going on with, say, Accel and the Sister, then it’d go to the camera – which lead us back to Biribiri at the facility, which then had her noticing the camera’s feed and – going through that – ending up back with us live at Accel and the Sister. I’m not explaining it well, but you know what part I mean if you watched the episode. It was really cool and felt very smoothly done. It was a great way of maintaining 3 fully separate yet connected situations going on in different places without making it feel disjointed at all. I’m genuinely happily surprised every episode by just how fucking great the episodes are made in every single aspect – I know this and yet every week when I see the new episode I feel just as wowed by it as the first time.

This episode was the hardest yet to get screenshots from. All the ones I have almost I want to delete too, they are just all fucked up and depressing.

Aside all that, I was happy to know that the sister from the previous episode was the one that survived, though I feel like that’s backwards; the one who shot the grenade was the one that died, and they showed that as being her. I may have gotten confused at some point, but it’s not like it’s such a big deal. I don’t think there’s an error in continuity here, I just feel like I missed something pertinent in one of the fighting scenes.

Last episode covered Touma’s scenes that aren’t all that relevant a little too much, but this week felt better about it. He was around but, like I mentioned before – I’m fine with him being around, just not with us seeing material that’s fully straight out of Index and not all that relevant. This time felt like every scene of his was necessary, and like I’ve also mentioned before, he’s fine in this kind of role. It’s almost refreshing seeing him not be an awful protagonist and instead being a secondary role.

Oh – and Accelerator. I know he supposedly evolves into a good character later on, but even with this flashback I’m just not seeing it. Yeah, he was less blood thirsty and refused to kill humans or what he considered as such. However, he still seemed to have a lot of fun fucking her up. I can’t say that’s much better – and just speaking based on that flashback it seems like he was already a shithead. An earlier episode had another flashback of him being a prick too, the type that would totally enjoy hurting others. So, sure, maybe he’s not someone who would have went and murdered 10,000+ for fun PRIOR to the researchers fucking his head up…but he still would have enjoyed kicking the shit out of them, and that still makes him a shitty person and an edgy-as-all-hell character. Of course, given Railgun and, in a rare instance of me praising it, Index, have both shown to consistently develop and explain their casts very well, I have no doubt there’s more to it that was probably prior to the research. I just wonder if we’ll ever find out about it within Railgun or if that will be Index/LN only stuff.

Speaking of the flashback though, it was nice to meet the first clone he fought and see how silly she was; which is kind of odd given they are supposed to not have emotions in them at that point. Not odd in a “this is inconsistent lore” way, but odd like “I wonder why the clones had some feelings, was the program glitchy or just not complete?” or something. Either way, the few seconds of her not fucking bleeding out from basically shooting herself were fun, though that stuff I just mentioned cancelled that out pretty fucking quickly. I don’t think watching what is essentially Biribiri dying all these horrible deaths will ever get any easier, and I don’t look forward to having to rewatch this episode when showing my brother the new episodes next time he’s around.

Anyway, see you next wee- well, actually, see you in a few days hopefully, as the new episode is already almost out! Thanks for reading, and remember, be power smart and conserve electricity ~biribiri!

Well technically I haven’t written a review of either season of Railgun – I think the reason is the same for why I haven’t written reviews for many other shows some people would really expect from me such as other favorites of mine

Part of that answer is “they were here until my entire blog got wiped due to server issues” but in Railgun’s case I think I just could never really find the right way to express my thoughts on it. That happens a lot for me, ESPECIALLY with shows that are special to me for some reason or I REALLY loved. I do write reviews for stuff like that sometimes (NANA for example) but rarely compared to shows I just liked a lot or less. I guess I worry about doing things a disservice or not being able to convey my feelings good enough to do it justice.

I still do go back and try writing reviews for stuff like that though, so who knows, a Railgun review might show up someday.

As for Barakamon and Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 – I’ve seen them and you’re right, I definitely really enjoyed them. Whatever genre you’d say Barakamon is is probably my favorite type of show right after romance-drama and I really loved the cast, and Tokyo 8.0 is a show that thanks to living in an area with lots of earthquakes had extra impact with me while in general being a great dama. Thanks for the recommendation all the same though.

Oh and its true the animewise in Railgun series, Railgun S’s sister’s arc is dark. But like I have always said there are even more major,awesome,interesting and darker arcs later in the novels.

Although the light novel’s sisters arc is even more gory than it’s anime counterpart (i.e index anime and railgun s ) Especially the Accelerator vs misaka 10031 part was toned down a lot in the railgun s anime.

While in the novels her body is described as (copied and pasted from the novels ) :-

“She was lying face up as if she were staring up at the rectangular visible portion of the purple sky.

There was a sea of blood. The sea of blood was so large that it made one wonder if a single human body really held that much blood. It wasn’t just on the ground. Both walls were painted red up to eye-level. It looked like someone had wrung out a human body to get every last drop of blood out.

In the center of that explosion of red lay a girl.

The arms and legs extending out from the short-sleeves and the skirt were torn up. It was most likely the same on her skin within her clothes that he could not see. Her school uniform had been dyed so red that its original colors could no longer be seen, but the clothes themselves were not torn at all.

Her body seemed to have been torn apart from the inside along the paths of the blood vessels as if someone had passed narrow wires through all of them and then forcibly torn the wires out. Her torn-up arms were reminiscent of a diagram of a dissected frog. The torn-up girl had nothing that could actually be called a “face”. Instead, she had what looked like an open flower or a peeled boiled egg. It was a dark-red cavity with pink muscles and soft yellow fat inside.

“Uuh…Ahh…”

Upon seeing the red and purple scene before him, Kamijou took a step back. He must have started squeezing with his arms because the black cat started mewing like it could not breathe.

“Ah…Gh…”

Kamijou had seen a type of hell within the Misawa Cram School, but the corpses he had seen there had not had a “flesh-and-blood” feeling to them because they had either been encased in armor or transformed into melted gold.

But this was different.

He felt the urge to vomit as if he had stuck a finger down his throat. He screamed in his heart not to vomit. He used nice logic in thinking that he was looking at Misaka Imouto and he shouldn’t vomit upon seeing her, but then he suddenly noticed her skirt in the edge of his vision.

Something was sticking out from within her skirt, from between her legs. The soft and squishy object with a pink surface and a hint of purple was…

“Ugehh!”

In that instant, Kamijou could no longer hold back and his body doubled over. A sour flavor filled his mouth and then the contents of his stomach shot from his mouth.

Kamijou vomited.

With a disgusting sound, the vomit fell to the ground. It spread out and mixed with the edge of the sea of blood creating an odd marble pattern.”

Dude’s always been gender neutral, dude! EVERYONE is a dude! And for the record I don’t mind you commenting of course, just try to relax about these giant walls of text and copy pasted novel passages about Index – you’ve said plenty about it already and it’s weird waking up to randomly see more. I do appreciate you taking the time to write them though! Just try to relax about it, I got your point 50 comments ago, I still disagree with it and a lot of what you say, but making more comments about either index or railgun isn’t going to change that especially when you’ve already made so many. It’s cool that you’re so passionate about the series, but I don’t know if filling my comments with that stuff forever is the best way to get across that passion.

And even in the novels, Kamachi in the ”Afterword” section always gives credit to haimura for the illustrations. That doesn’t mean haimura wrote the story.

The same way in the railgun manga, the plot,the idea,the writing is by kamachi but the illustrations are by fuyukawa. Seriously how can’t you even understand that. Just like the light novels , kamachi gives credit to fuyukawa for the illustrations.

I mean like Kamachi is the only one who knows the most about the To aru universe , he’s the original creator of this famous novel, and is the one who can fit the timeline properly just like he did in railgun. If it was someone else they would have messed the timeline up!

And just like I said in my other posts he’s someone who’s talented and fast enough to complete each volume in 3 or 4 months along with writing other novels too at the same time.

For eg Durarara’s novel on the other hand take almost 1 year for each volume.

Kamachi considers writing novels as his pastime, and he takes joy in doing so; in fact, he is noted for his very quick pace of writing. As exemplified by volume 2 of the Index novels which was written at the behest of his editor, and was forced to complete it in 17 days.[6] He is also extremely prolific, apparently managing to write for two of his light novel series on schedule, and at the same time writing for other side projects. (From the wiki)

Kamachi Kazuma (鎌池和馬 Kamachi Kazuma?) is a Japanese light novel author and the original creator of the Toaru Majutsu no Index light novel series and its spin-off manga series, Toaru Kagaku no Railgun and Toaru Kagaku no Accelerator. He also actively works on the manga and anime adaptations of both Index and Railgun, and has worked on other related media such the original plot of the PSP games. (From the wiki)

And I do believe he’s talented being able to write one volume of a light novel within 3 months.

First of all when I said that the railgun manga is written by kamachi, I never meant to say that he also was the one who drew them (and probably neither did he draw in the light novels and also never even animated it) What I meant to say is that the story and the plot and all the idea is by him, but the illustration/drawings are done by Fuyukawa. Honestly,same goes to the accelerator manga, the idea,the plot is by him but the art isn’t (it’s a new artist and the drawing is not that good, I hope he improves in the future)

Just like J.C staff (I really like them) takes up the job of making animes from the manga/light novels. They probably aren’t the one who made the plot and all (yeah,they do make slight improvements and all) , only the anime original episodes (like silent party arc) are some original plots by them.

On top of it even later Accelerator (after saving last order) still considers himself a villain and a shit who should go to hell along with the other people who are dragging last order in the dark side. I like how he doesn’t forgives himself and admits that he chose the wrong path.

On and hey what the heck?!!! Accelerator didn’t even seem interested in killing Misaka 1 in the flashback. But Misaka shot a bullet at him and here she got killed!

Honestly, the light novels describe Accelerator’s feelings and his past more better and how it would be if we put ourselves in his shoes, where the whole military would be after him when he was just a kid and took advantage of him and honestly it was too much for him that he surrendered himself to the scientists.

I will tell you Touma and Index are the same in the novels as the anime. But honestly, atleast touma is a bit better in the novel than in the anime while index is damn annoying and useless in both.

J.C staff left out so much from the light novels, that’s the reason why index anime seems so bad.

The sisters arc in railgun is cool and good due to fact that railgun was done by kamachi (the one who wrote the novels of index) in the form of manga and it is easy to adapt a anime from a manga than a light novel.

Railgun S even has better animation than Index and the sister’s arc is better in Railgun only because Railgun S was made really a lot of years later than index. So honestly they were able to do improvements in the sister’s arc.

Otherwise ,the index novels consists more dark and interesting arc (which are in fact even kind of darker than the sister’s arc) . (Not interested in the magic side, just love the science side which includes Accelerator,Last order,Misaka,Misaka worst,the clones,etc)

On top of the fact he admits he doesn’t write them, let me ask you a question – and I’m not being sarcastic or whatever I really want to ask this:
Do you honestly believe Kamachi is a world record setting miracle working writer who is currently working on about 8 different established series? Several light novels and several manga, let alone contributing to television adaptations?

No human being is capable of doing this, if you truly believe Kamachi to be this fucking insanely talented then you might want to start realizing how insanely talented you really are saying he is.

You do know that in books, manga, movie scripts, movie screenplays, tv scripts, tv screenplays, light novels, novels, MUSIC even not just lyrics but the song itself, everything that can be “written” is almost always written by a ghost writer yet 100% credit is given to the bigger name and it’s why that bigger name will do it.

For example, in the case of the Railgun manga, Kamachi will give the actual writer a bunch of notes and say “make this the story and make it work” and leave the rest to them. This is further cemented by him stating so in the tankoban endings.

But say, the main theme for Metal Gear Solid 2. It says it’s a musical piece composed by this huge Hollywood film composer. What he actually did was compose the main ‘hook’ of the song, the rest was given to other(s) to do based on that. Or think of any popular novelist – lets say Tom Clancy before he died, he wrote less than a full quarter of all the novels published under his name, and that’s literally how it is for anyone with a lot of content coming out under their name.

Nobody, not even the most prolific writers of our day or the past, can sit there writing so many different stories, make the deadlines, and make them to any publishable level, all at the same time. Kamachi is not working miracles.

This is incredibly common and, if anything, I respect Kamachi more for somewhat admitting he isn’t fully responsible for all his works, especially Railgun.